English Names

I have long wondered how Asian people that learn English acquire an English name to identify themselves with westerners.  Was this name something they were given from birth by their parents?  Was it picked randomly by the individual Asian person?  Was it the handiwork of an English teacher that did not want to spend significant time learning to say “Kim Eun Suk” and learning to call the student “Eun Suk”?  The answer, as I witnessed firsthand on day one of the kindergarten term at my school, is yes. 

Hyuck-Hyuck-Hyuck

Last week, I served as master of ceremonies for my school’s kindergarten graduation ceremony.  I spent plenty of awkward time at the podium, basically just uttering random English phrases and words in order to fill the time and space needed for each Kindergarten class enough to set up for the performance they had prepared for the evening.  Fortunately, as my audience was largely Korean only speakers, I think not many in attendance either understood or cared much for what I was saying in my capacity as host. 

Aside:  I am hoping that the photos from the ceremony come my way soon (there is also a DVD being produced, no joke) and those will be promptly posted. 

The most difficult part of the night though, came when I had to announce the names of the graduating Kindergarteners and faced my demise with the name Hyuck. 

Far East

Hey hey, I just landed in Seoul, South Korea and am loving the free wifi at the airport.  I wish I had a connection with which to blog throughout my trip so far, but I have a few comments and notes I’d like to get in before I jump on my connecting flight to Busan.

1)  Korean Air gave me one of the best travel experiences ever.  Plenty of movies, good food, lots of movie options and most importantly lots of space.  Perhaps the expectations I had of flying steerage class for 14 hours made anything seem great, but I never felt that cramped, discomforted or crappy throughout the flight.  I think the quality sleeping pills I took during the flight may have also helped some. 

2)  Incheon International Airport is pretty sweet.  Free wifi, free luggage carts and everything is shiny and clean.  Also, at those desks where people fill out customs documents, there were even reading glasses provided next to the pens that are usually found at such a desk. 

3)  Perhaps a little bit of the jitters and natural homesickness that comes to being a great distance from the states, but I did begin to feel alien on the flight from New York.  I was not the only American on the flight, but the others travelling were military personal and clearly doing their own thing. 

4) Google defaulting to www.google.co.kr during my first web search in Korea is a neat trick, but I must override that.  Right now, I struggle to pronounce Romanizations of Korean words (“Thank you” is a struggle at kam-sa-ham-ni-da) so Korean characters are absolutely useless to me right now. 

5)  Solid move packing some big bags of Dark Chocolate M & M’s.  I’d venture over to the convenience store, but I check-in for my flight hasn’t opened yet (its 5:56am here) and I don’t want to lug 6 months worth of luggage in and out while decided between lots of Korean Foods at the convenience store that I don’t know diddley about. 

More to come…..